defeatHIV Network Members

Keith Jerome is co-Principal Investigator of the defeatHIV Martin Delaney Collaboratory. Dr. Jerome also leads the defeatHIV Targeted Disruption of SHIV project and the Administrative Core. Dr. Jerome’s research focuses on the chronic and latent phases of virus infections, virus immune evasion mechanisms, and potential curative therapeutic approaches to these infections. His most recent work involves the use of rare-cutting endonucleases that may allow precise inactivation of functional viral DNA within infected cell reservoirs, and offers the prospect of a cure for human immunodeficiency virus, hepatitis B virus, herpes simplex virus, and human papillomavirus infections.

Dr. Stephen De Rosa currently serves as a defeatHIV Core leader. Dr. De Rosa’s research utilizes advanced flow cytometric techniques to examine T cell functions at the single cell level, including T-cell responses specific to viral infections such as CMV, EBV, HIV and Hepatitis B. More recently, Dr. De Rosa’s research has focused on examining antigen-specific T-cell responses to HIV infection or vaccination, while working on the development of new assays to evaluate vaccine immunogenicity and vaccine efficacy in collaboration with the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN).

Martin Prlic currently serves as a defeatHIV Core leader. Dr. Prlic’s laboratory studies 2 populations of immune cells, CD8 T cells and NK cells, using in vivo and in vitro model systems. The regulation of CD8 T cell responses is of key interest, particularly the analysis of CD8 T cell memory development and manipulation of programmed cell death in effector T cells. The role of NK cells in protecting against opportunistic infections, in the context of hematopoietic cell transplantation and solid organ transplant, is also a primary focus.